End drug war by ending moralistic ban on drugs

Here's a letter to the editor I just sent to the Wall Street Journal:
________________________________


If the Weekend Journal article on the infamous drug war and its 6,000 related murders in Mexico doesn’t change people’s minds on the so-called drug war and the legality of drugs, not much will, I suspect.

Have we not learned that the banning of commodities creates black markets and gangster territorialism that utilizes murder and kidnapping as means for eliminating competition and keeping subordinates in line? Governments cannot (I repeat, cannot) halt such terrorism by underground supply-and-demand cadres.

The only way to eliminate them is to end puritanical moralizing about drugs and let them join the free market. Human beings have a right to harm themselves by ingestion (and suffer the consequences) and be free of altruistic, pulpit-barking restrictions. The real antagonists in this modern-day witch hunt are elected officials, the voters who vote them into office and the media (including this newspaper) who condone moralistic bans.

Please don’t forget to look in the mirror when you decry the 6,000 deaths. Mea culpas all around.